‘If I die, I want it not to be in vain, I want change’ – Vicky tells TDs
VICKY Phelan, the woman whose High Court case revealed the cervical screening scandal, has said “if I do die, I want it not to be in vain”.
She told TDs at a special meeting of the Dáil’s Public Accounts Committee (PAC) that while she’s “not interested in revenge, I want to see accountability”.
Ms Phelan was appearing at the PAC alongside Stephen Teap, who lost his wife to cervical cancer after she had twice been given the all-clear after smear tests.
Terminally ill mother-oftwo Ms Phelan, from Annacotty, Co Limerick, was awarded €2.5m in a High Court settlement with a US lab after she got an incorrect smear test result.
The revelations in her case led to the storm over the CervicalCheck service that has dominated the political agenda for three weeks.
The PAC is examining the failure to inform 209 women who have cervical cancer of the outcome of false negative smear tests that emerged in an audit of the screening service.
Officials from the HSE and Department of Health will be appearing before the committee for a further grilling on the issue this morning.
TDs applauded after both Ms Phelan and Mr Teap delivered their heartbreaking testimony.
During her gripping evidence, Ms Phelan said: “If I do die, I want it not to be in vain.”
She said: “I want protocols to be put in place and sanctions for people who make mistakes and that the HSE is overhauled from the ground up, so that people are held accountable and this will never happen again.”
Mr Phelan outlined how a smear test she had in 2011 came back normal.
However, she went to her doctor in 2014 after experiencing bleeding and had another test.
She was diagnosed with cancer that year.
Ms Phelan said her symptoms had been mild and this was something other women needed to know.
The cancer spread beyond her cervix and Ms Phelan underwent a course of radiation treatment and chemotherapy.
She described this as “five weeks of hell”, adding: “I wouldn’t wish it on my worst enemy.”
She said she considered herself lucky she didn’t lose her hair during this time as her son loves it.
The treatment ended when she turned 40.
However, she had back pain in the years that followed, had a check-up in September 2017 and was later told that the cancer was back.
It had spread and was affecting vital organs. Ms Phelan was told it was terminal.
She also discovered that her 2011 smear test had been incorrect and began her legal action in January.
She said the incorrect 2011 smear test was either as a result of incompetence or it wasn’t looked at at all as it was “full of cancer”.
She said there were issues of open disclosure in her case as there was several months of correspondence about who would tell her about the incorrect smear test.
Ms Phelan told TDs: “The misdiagnosis, in my case it has cost me my life. I’ve got terminal cancer.
“I don’t believe I’m going to die but I have to fight for my life every day.”
Ms Phelan said she was given 12 months to live if she went on palliative chemotherapy and six months if she did not.
She decided to undertake a course of a new kind of cancer drug instead.
Ms Phelan pointed out that 18 women caught up in the cervical screening scandal had died, including Irene Teap.
She said: “At least I’m still here to tell the tale and that’s why I’m fighting with everything in my being.”
Committee chairman Seán Fleming thanked Ms Phelan and Mr Teap for telling their stories saying it had been “deeply humbling”.
He said members had heard their testimony about the “failures of the State institutions that resulted in the needless death of women” and “everything will have been in vain if there are no fundamental changes in the future”.
Fianna Fáil TD Marc MacSharry said: “I’m in the Oireachtas since 2002. I’m ashamed that the body that’s supposed to hold all of these organisations to account, that we have all spectacularly failed you, and for that I am personally sorry.”
At the end of the meeting Ms Phelan said: “Do you think I want to be here? If I don’t have a huge amount of time left I certainly don’t want to be spending it up here in front of committees. But I’m here because I want to see change happen.”
She said that she and Mr Teap met for the first time yesterday.
“Myself and Stephen should not know each other. I don’t mean that in a bad way but look why we know each other. It’s horrible.”
She added: “We want to see change.”